Mad World
by mkaz
Summary: Peter has created a new universe to repair the singularities plaguing our world and the other world. Olivia is determined to bring him home, but can she reach him in his grief and confusion? Based on a dream that won't let me sleep.


_Disclaimer: I do not own Fringe, or any of its core characters._

_I based this story off a dream I had last week that was so intricate I couldn't go back to sleep. It's not my best story, but hopefully writing it all down will be therapeutic for me. Enjoy!_

When Olivia opened her eyes, she was in Peter's universe.

She looked around, amazed that this was an entire entity, born just a few hours earlier. It looked like Earth, obviously. Sam explained that Peter would most likely create a habitable world, using their universe as a template.

She took a deep breath, and was surprised by the coolness and sweetness of the air. More cool than sweet, she decided, and pulled her thick down parka closer to her. Sam had warned that Peter's world would probably be much colder than hers, due to the lack of body heat from other humans and the build up of pollution. She'd come dressed for winter. But it was about the only thing she could do to prepare.

She was standing on a high grassy hill, the landscape green as far as the eye could see. The sky was a slate grey – calm but with just a hint of storm menace. She took a step down the hill, and found her steps were lighter and more buoyant than what she'd expected. She practically flew down the hill. She had to remember: in a parallel universe, the laws of physics might be completely different from where she came. There was no rule that gravity had to have the same pull on objects. They were all Peter's rules, in fact.

Olivia didn't see him. The land was empty and open, and she could see for miles around. Sam had also warned her that Olivia might have to look for him, that she couldn't expect him to be standing in the exact location where she would cross to.

"Don't be surprised if he doesn't recognize you, either," Sam had told her, as they all sat together in Walter's lab after the battle was over. "Being in that machine – creating this new universe – it may wreak havoc on his mind."

Olivia was too tired to respond much by that point – too tired and too numb with grief. She'd just lost Peter. And Walter.

Olivia wasn't prepared for how much she'd miss the old man. Her feelings toward Walter were always complex. On the one hand, she resented him for the experiments he'd done on her as a child, and his rambling, tactless, childish ways often grated on her nerves. And when she'd discovered his secret on her own – that he'd not only crossed over to another universe and kidnapped a child that wasn't his, but that he'd done irreparable damage to the fabric of reality – her resentment bordered on contempt.

But he loved her, and he made no attempt to conceal it. Olivia was sure that Walter loved her as much as he loved Peter. In spite of the horrible things he'd done, he had a gentleness and a vulnerability about him that made a person want to protect him, to take care of him. It was impossible, at least for Olivia, to hate someone who could love her and depend on her so much.

And she didn't realize this until Walter was dying.

They'd finally convinced Walternate that his plans to destroy their universe were wrong – not just ethically, but practically as well.

"Our worlds aren't just parallel – they're symbiotic!" Walter exploded at his double, as he and Olivia were held at gunpoint by the Secretary's officials at Liberty Island. "Why do you think, that in spite of the possibility of many worlds branching from the same quantum event, our two universes are accessible to one another exclusively? I am convinced, Walter, that if you succeed in destroying my universe, your universe will be destroyed too."

"And what would you have me do?" Walternate replied coldly. "Let the two of you go on your merry way, take my son with you? Let your universe thrive while mine becomes nothing but a ball of amber with all the cracks needed to be sealed?"

Olivia could feel a theory forming in her mind, almost on its own. It was like a ball of mud rolling down a hill, gathering weight and speed as it rolled to an inevitable destination.

"Wait!" she cried out, as the guards were about to take them away. She turned to her Walter. "The amber – it seals cracks in reality, right? And supposedly our universes lie right next to each other, if we were to think of it as spatial proximity. What if – what if we were to…create a new universe, to lie between our universe and theirs? It would be like…like a resin, used to seal hairline cracks in a glass windshield before they get too deep and cut through the glass completely."

Walternate scoffed. "It's a bit more complicated than that. We're not talking about windshields here, child."

"No! She's right! In theory, it could work!" Walter exclaimed. "The device that responds to Peter has the ability to destroy or create a universe. We just need to…somehow convince Peter to think about creating a new universe." Walter turned to Olivia with a smile. "I suppose…my old friend Belly is still in there somewhere, Olivia?"

Olivia did not smile back. It had frightened her to think that in spite of William Bell voluntarily purging himself from her mind when they had all realized the danger to her, that the old man's consciousness still lingered in some way. But this was not the time to think about that. They needed to go back to their universe, where Peter was now being held captive with the machine, and get him to do what was needed.

They'd convinced Walternate. Olivia turned to him and said, "If there was a chance to have your son back and save your world, Mr. Secretary, wouldn't you take it?" And, at last, he relented.

Olivia transported them back to her universe – by now she was able to control the journey quite smoothly. However, once they'd returned to their side, she fell forward slightly, caught from falling by Walter and his double. "Olivia? Are you all right?" Walter asked her in concern.

"Yes, I'm fine," she told him. "Just a little dizzy. Come on, we need to get to Peter."

Walternate's troops had taken over the compound housing the machine on our side, and now he was going to have to convince them to let them through. By the time they got there, however, the secretary's head researcher, Brandon, had already loaded Peter into the machine.

The three of them froze in their tracks. Walter looked at his double. "We can't get him out of there now. That machine is a part of him. He'll die!"

"Then how do we save him?" Olivia asked.

"The only way he's getting out of there – alive – is if he can create another universe, one where the machine doesn't exist," Walternate replied.

"Then we need to tell him that," Olivia said. She began to walk to the machine, only to be held back by Walter.

"Olivia, if you do that, you won't…" he stopped himself. "I'll go," he told them.

"Then you'll die. The energy created from the machine would be devastating," Walternate said bluntly, not bothering to save the truth from Olivia.

Walter smiled sadly at his doppelganger. "The lives for 4 billion people for the price of one old man's life? Fair trade," he told them. "Olivia," he said, taking her hands.

"Walter…"

"I need to make this right, dear. I'm the one who started this. I need to finish it." Walter took Olivia in his arms, but she was too shocked to hug him back. This would later be one of the things she regretted most in her life.

Walter turned to the secretary. "Walter, I know I can't say I'm sorry for what I've done to you, but I hope someday you'll come to understand why I did what I did. It was love…and grief."

"Two things I know all too well," Walternate replied. "I pray that you succeed."

Then Walter was in the machine with Peter. Olivia could see the machine rejecting his DNA, trying to eject him from it. But Walter held on. She could see Walter's eyes, pleading with Peter, compelling him to push his will in the right direction.

The building began to shake violently. Pieces of the roof and walls began to cave and fly about them. The machine glowed fiercely, lighting up the night like a Christmas tree.

Olivia whirled around to face Walternate. "Hang on, we're leaving!" she shouted to him, gripping his shoulders to phase out of her universe and into his.

She managed to land them back into the secretary's office on Liberty Island. Before she even opened her eyes, she could hear the click of multiple guns trained on her.

She opened her eyes slowly, letting go of Walternate's well-tailored suit. One of the officers with a gun on her had Olivia's face. She held the gun with one hand, her full belly with the other.

Olivia's eyes automatically fell to her double's stomach and the helpless child inside. "Tell them to stand back," she muttered to Walternate.

He looked at them with casual charm. "It's all right, gentlemen," he told them. "There is no threat anymore. You may leave."

As the rest of the fringe division exited the room, the other Olivia Dunham stayed behind. "Where is he?" she asked. "Where's Peter?"

Olivia's eyes itched, and she soon discovered it was because they were wet from tears. "Hopefully…in a universe he created." And without thinking, Olivia phased away, back to the other Boston, the other Walter's lab. Astrid, Broyles, Nina, Brandon, and Sam were waiting for her.

Astrid took the news of Walter's death with the most emotion. She collapsed into sobs, and finally Broyles got up from his seat at one of the lab tables and put his arms around her.

Olivia, on the other hand, couldn't cry. She could feel anything at all, except perhaps her heart, which felt like it was going to explode in her chest.

Then she felt Sam's fingers on her cheek, felt him cup her face in his hands. "I know this hurts," he told her. "Peter's not going to come back on his own. You have to go get him."

So, here she was, a stranger in a strange world. She walked for what seemed like hours, but she had no way to be sure. The passage of time – this world's orbit around the sun must have been different from hers, because day seemed to last for mere hours and then night would fall. The stars seemed to barely shine for an hour, then the sun would be rising in full force again.

At first, there seemed to be no animals in this new world. The wind blew strong and sharp, and Olivia's skin felt dried and numb. She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the loneliness of the barren world. She'd never realized how she'd come to rely on other people to be the background and white noise of her life. Olivia had always been a loner, fearing and rejecting too much intimacy, but there was the comfort of knowing that outside of her apartment there was an entire world full of people like her.

On what could be considered the second day of her journey, she passed a tree and saw a blackbird sitting on a branch, staring at her with its shiny bead eyes. She gave a laughing sob of relief and kept walking.

She had been tired from the very beginning of her arrival in this new world, but now she was hungry, and thirsty. But with no people there was no place to rest – not even a place to sit. She wasn't even sure if the things she saw in front of her eyes were there or not. Somehow her body kept moving, though she didn't know how.

And then, right at the very moment when she considered giving up and trying to go home, she saw it, at her feet.

Olivia rubbed her eyes with her heavy hand and stared at it, trying to assure herself that it was real.

At her feet, there was a white tulip growing.

Olivia looked up, and there was another one, just a few feet away.

Gravity did not hinder her. She leapt easily up the hills, flanked by the ethereal white flowers. Olivia found herself praying that Peter would be there.

It was night again, and she could barely see. "I wish there was a moon in this universe," she wished aloud.

So she wished for it, and there it was, full and silvery. The world below seemed draped in a thin, shimmery cotton veil, that gave Olivia enough light to realize she was standing in a field of white tulips.

Why did this feel so familiar to her? She didn't know. "Peter!" she called out, feeling helpless. "Peter, I'm here!"

But Peter did not come.

She had to keep calm, stay strong. She closed her eyes and tried to will Peter to find her, the way she willed the moon. "You are capable of more than you can imagine, Olivia," a voice told her.

Olivia opened her eyes. Where had she heard that before? Walter, maybe.

_Oh Walter. I wish you were here to tell me what to do._

"Hi," said a voice behind her.

Olivia turned around, and smiled. She knew she had to be careful in her movements, or she might scare him away. She got up, brushed the dirt off the backs of her pants.

"Hello," she told him. "How do you feel?"

He crinkled his face in confusion. "I don't know," he told her. "I've never been here, but I don't remember being anywhere else."

Peter's face had an innocence to it that Olivia had never seen before, yet it felt so familiar to her. Had she met him as a child? No, she would have remembered that.

Carefully she took a step towards him, and tried to mask her disappointment when he took a step back from her advancement.

"Peter," she said gently. "Do you remember me? Do you know who I am?"

He ignored her question and looked up at the sky. "This sky isn't right. What's wrong with this place? Did you do it?"

"No, Peter. You did it. You created it. And I'm here to bring you home."

Suddenly Peter's eyes filled with tears. "He's dead, isn't he? He died because of me. I remember his face now – his face is like mine, but older. And he was – he was crying, because he loved me and he had to let me go. He told me that."

Olivia dared to take another step to Peter, and this time, he didn't step away. "That was Walter. He was your…" she hesitated. "Your father."

Peter started crying softly, and he fell to his knees in the mass of white flowers. Olivia knelt down next to him, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"I know, Baby. I miss him too. But we can't stay here. We have to go home."

Peter stopped crying and looked at Olivia. "Where is home?"

She smiled sadly. "Another world. Another universe. You have to let me in."

"Why?"

Olivia took his face in her hands. "So that I can save you."

She helped him to his feet. They were standing together, face to face. Olivia knew now what she had to do, what she had to say to make him come back.

"Peter, once you didn't know where you belonged. And I told you that I couldn't ask you to come back to help me solve cases, or even to take care of Walter – none of those things. It was because…" she paused, hoping he would answer.

And that's when she saw it. That's when the blank innocence in his eyes melted away, revealing the man she knew and loved, the man who could play a good con just as well as he could risk his life to save a stranger.

"Because I belong with you," he told her.

Olivia pulled him into her arms. "Peter," she whispered.

He smiled at her as the snow began to fall. He looked up at the sky. "Are you doing this?" he asked.

She laughed. "I might be." She unzipped her down parka and pulled it around the two of them. "Are you ready to go home?"

He wrapped his arms around her waist. "Ready as I'll ever be. How does this work?"

Olivia didn't answer. She was looking at his lips. They leaned forward together at the same time, coming together in a kiss. The wind blew around them furiously, the large flakes of snow dashing themselves against the two of them.

Time seemed to stop for Peter as they kissed, but eventually he realized the snow was gone and it was much warmer than before. He opened his eyes and found himself on a streetcorner, illuminated by the artificial light of streetlamps. He heard the chattering of dozens of voices, the honking of cars.

He pulled away ever so slightly from Olivia, who was smiling at him. "We made it."

Peter smiled back at her, relieved. But his smiled quickly faded when the shadow of a zeppelin flying overhead caught his eye.

The Fringe division, having been alerted to the presence of a phenomenon, were now quickly approaching the scene. The Olivia Dunham of that world was leading the group, flanked by Charlie Francis and Lincoln Lee. Behind them, escorted by several armed guards, was Secretary of Defense Walter Bishop.

Peter whirled around to face his love. "Olivia! What the hell did you do? Why are we here?"

Her hand came to her heart, as if his words had wounded her. "This is where you belong, Peter. I realize now, that in order for both worlds to heal, there has to be balance. Everything from each side needs to be where it came from. As long as you're in my world, the suffering will continue." She smiled as her double approached, her pregnant belly seeming to lead the rest of her forward. "Besides, your baby needs you."

Peter gasped in frustration. "Liv, please…"

But Olivia ignored him and spoke to her double. "Take care of him, will you?"

Her red-haired counterpart nodded confidently. "Of course. Thank you."

"Damnit!" Peter exploded. "Don't I get a say in this?"

"The lives of billions for the cost of two people's happiness? Fair price," Olivia replied, echoing Walter's earlier words.

She gave Peter one last look, and, after exchanging a look of mutual grudging respect with Secretary Bishop, she phased away.

"Olivia!" Peter cried out as she disappeared. The threat neutralized, the Fringe team began to move away.

Walter Bishop walked up to his son, who was still staring longingly at the spot the girl had disappeared from. "Son, I'm sorry, but it had to be done. It was…a noble gesture on her part." He reached out for his son to comfort him.

But Peter jerked himself away from Walternate's touch. "Don't you even talk to me," he muttered, and walked off.

Olivia began to follow him, but Walternate stopped her. "Let him go, Olivia. He just needs time. Things will work out."

Olivia looked across the crowded streetscape, to the dark figure now retreating steadily into the shadows of his birth world. Channeling her blonde double, she allowed herself a small, cynical smile. "Of course they will," she said. "He has no other choice."

* * *

Olivia's friends were practically in the same spot she'd left them when she returned - in the lab, waiting for her nervously, but faithfully. She returned with a slight blue crackle of electricity, and they rushed to her.

"Olivia?" Astrid asked, as Broyles and Sam stood around her, ready to catch her if need be. Astrid looked around the other woman, as if expecting something to be hiding behind her back. "Where's Peter?"

Olivia looked at Astrid with what she could only describe as pure love. "I took him home. I said I would, and that's what I did."

Before she could even finish her sentence, her eyes were rolling back into her head and she was collapsing onto the floor. The eight hands of Astrid, Sam, Broyles, and Nina Sharp caught Olivia Dunham and brought her gently to the ground. Astrid was already rushing off to call an ambulance before Broyles could even finish barking the order at her.

"What's wrong with her?" Broyles asked Sam.

Sam looked at the shaking, ashen woman in their arms and shook his head sadly. "It's all the universe jumping. It's too much for her body."

"But she has the cortexiphan. William said she could pass through the universes safely," Nina argued.

"Yes. Safe for the _universes_, not for _her_," the dark-haired man replied.

"So how do we help her?" Broyles asked.

"We can't. There's nothing we can do," Sam said.

Broyles looked down at his agent, and for once his stoic expression was marred by anguish. Astrid came rushing back.

"The ambulance will be here soon. She'll be fine," the young agent told them. But Broyles just shook his head.

"Sir…" Olivia whispered weakly.

Broyles sighed. "What is it, Dunham?"

Olivia took his hand in hers. "You should have seen it, sir. The world Peter created. It was…beautiful." She smiled serenely, then closed her eyes to rest.

The lab at Harvard was quiet after that, marred only by Astrid's soft weeping and the shrill cry of ambulances, speeding uselessly to their destination.

* * *

Three years to that date, Peter Bishop and Olivia Dunham were sitting in a sandbox with their son, Oliver, in a park in New York City. In another place and time, that same spot held a building called Massive Dynamic, a corporation headed by a woman named Nina Sharp, who does not exist here.

Oliver was busy shoveling cupfulls of the pale yellow sand into his bright blue bucket, then dumping it out unceremoniously and starting all over again, with no regrets. Peter marveled at that ability, somehow.

"So I've been working out the details for Ollie's party. Your mother said we could have it at her house, and my mother already said she'd bake the cake for it," Olivia told Peter. "The other parents at the daycare know it's going to be sometime next month, but we need to work out a definite date. What do you think – the Saturday before, or after, his birthday?

Peter didn't answer. He was busy staring into the tiny sand piles his little tow-headed child was creating around him. Olivia smiled uneasily and tilted her head to get his attention. "Peter?"

He looked up at her blankly. "Sorry, what?"

She sat back on her heels. "Nevermind."

Peter looked over at his son's mother, who was brushing a stray lock of red hair away from her face the way she always did when she felt hurt or annoyed. He knew she was trying; they both were. They built their lives around their son, who they named Oliver. When strangers learned their little boy's name, they just assumed he was named after his mother. Obviously it was easier to let them think that than to explain who the child was really named after.

They still don't live together, despite the gentle hints coming from both of their mothers. But Peter lives in the apartment across the street from Olivia, and he is always there for his little family whenever they needed him. Occasionally Peter sleeps over at Olivia's when Ollie is sick or Olivia needs a babysitter. Rarely Peter and Olivia go out by themselves.

In spite of the tension between himself and Olivia, Peter is pleasantly surprised at how well he's adapted to his new life. He reunited with his mother, and has begun to forge a wonderful relationship with her. He even looks to Marilyn Dunham as a second mother, and often relishes the parenting advice she shares with him.

He doesn't work for the Fringe division – he had told Olivia in just enough words that he'd find that painful and she understands – but he's started his own consulting firm handling everything from civil engineering to biomechanics. It's a small enterprise, but it's growing every day and he's immensely proud of that.

Peter only speaks to his father when necessary. He tolerates his presence at gatherings for the sake of his son and mother, but makes no other time for the older man, really. He knows that someday he will need to forgive Walternate – yes, he still thinks of him as "Walternate" – but he hasn't been able to do it yet. But Peter can feel that he will be able to do it someday, that it's something he's working for, reaching towards, all the time.

It took time for him to forgive Olivia – this Olivia, but he's been able to do it. Part of it has been seeing what a wonderful mother she's been to their son, how loving and giving she can truly be. He knows that none of this has been easy for her either, that it was never something that she wanted or asked for. She's just tried to do the best she can with the hand she's been given. He's sure that it hasn't felt good knowing that every time Peter looks at her, he's thinking of another woman. A woman he will love all his life, that he will always love more than Olivia.

"I'm sorry," Peter told her.

Olivia smiled. "Don't be. It's okay to miss her, Peter," she assured him. "I won't be resentful of her memory. I couldn't, not after what she gave up for all of us."

Peter squinted in the sun. "I just…I just wish I could know for sure that things worked out for her."

Olivia took his hand in hers. "I'm sure she's doing fine. She's a strong woman. And I'm sure she thinks about you too."

Peter smiled. "Thanks. And I think it should be the Saturday afterwards."

"Huh?"

"Ollie's party. I think it should be the Saturday after his birthday. It's all downhill after a party. At least if it's after his real birthday, then there's two things to look forward to."

"Good logic, Papa! Can I trust you to do the decorations and the favors?"

"Absolutely. Strippers and cigars all around!"

"Oh, you're just hilarious."

* * *

Across the street from the sandbox, standing in the shade of the trees, was a strange-looking bald man in a black suit and fedora. He stared at the young couple with their son, cocking his head slightly to the side in confusion and fascination.

An older man, also bald and impeccably dressed, came and stood next to him to look at the couple. "Why are you here, September?" the older man asked. "Their lives will no longer intersect with the magnanimous events from this point on. There is no reason to observe them."

"I still find them…interesting," September revealed to his superior. "Their emotions are so convoluted, yet so strong."

"Hmm," December mused. "Which emotion do you find the most intriguing?"

"Peter Bishop's sense of longing," September replied. "He longs for the double of that woman, even though the two are genetically identical. Even though…the other no longer exists. He will never know what happened to her, but he will long for her…for the rest of his life, I imagine."

"Well," December said, casually taking his glossy silver time-reader out of his pocket to inspect its glittering face, "Perhaps a phrase the humans use is true: ignorance is bliss."


End file.
